Tattoo Day
by Come Lady Death
Summary: Welcome to Night Vale. "It's tattoo day, Steve! I'm finally getting it done and you're gonna owe me fifty bucks." For my fiction writing class.


The office was peaceful. Quiet. Steve's favorite time of the day. It was the hour directly after lunch, when certain people hadn't gotten back from eating yet and thus couldn't disturb his work. Smiling a little to himself, Steve opened Internet Explorer and was just about to type in his first search when a loud whoop broke the silence of the office.

"Guess what day it is! Guess what day it is. Steve? Hey Steve, guess what day it is, Steve." Cecil crashed into the side of Steve's cubicle and popped his head over the top, grinning madly.

Steve rolled his eyes and didn't even bother looking up from his computer at the over-excited man invading his space. "It's tattoo day."

Cecil threw his arms into the air. "Tattoo day!" he declared triumphantly. "I'm finally getting it done and you're gonna owe me fifty bucks."

"I still think you're going to chicken out."

"And that's where you're wrong, _Steve Carlsburg_." Cecil stuck out his tongue childishly before heading back to his own office, crowing, "Tattoo day!"

Despite the show he put on for Steve, Cecil wasn't terribly confident about tattoo day. He hated needles, almost as much as he hated Steve Carlsburg. But he was determined not to freak out and to go through with it anyway. He sat alone in the lobby of the tattoo parlor, banging his feet against the chair legs nervously. He tried not to stare at the photos of tattoos on the walls and rubbed his arms absently. How could people stand to have things tattooed on themselves permanently? It just seemed so...boring.

"Cecil?" Startled, he turned to find a pretty young lady with tattoos on her arms and a ring through her lip. "I'm Cindy," she greeted, holding out her hand. "You're my three o'clock, yeah?"

"Yeah." His palms were sweating. He wiped his hands on his jeans before shaking her outstretched hand. "Yep, that's me."

She beckoned him to follow her and headed back toward the studio proper. "You here for traditional or...?"

"Oh, no, mikes. Definitely mikes." Cecil hurried to catch up to her, trying not to stare openly at the tattoo equipment. He swallowed back his apprehension and pasted on a smile. "Absolutely."

Cindy glanced back over her shoulder at him and smiled knowingly. "Don't like needles?"

Cecil deflated like a popped balloon. "I hate them," he said with a shudder. "But I think the mikes are really cool and I have a bet with this guy at work and if I have to see _Steve Carlsburg's_ stupid smug face on Monday I think I might kill something so I have to do this no matter what!" He nodded firmly as if to back up his torrent of an explanation.

Cindy stopped at a chair and gestured at Cecil to hop up. "Before I let you pick them out, I have to get you to sign the waivers." She laughed at his brief, panicked expression. "Nothing serious, just that you're responsible for your own aftercare. There's also the mike waiver, but I have to give you that orally as well, so pay attention.

"As you may be aware, mikes are not tattoos in the traditional sense. They are colonies of microorganisms which, when introduced into the body, create moving patterns and colors on human skin, similar to animated tattoos. By signing this waiver, you indicate your understanding that you are taking living creatures into your body. There is a percentage, however small, of rejection, for which we are not liable. For optimal performance and upkeep it is recommended that you discontinue use of harmful substances such as alcohol or nicotine and maintain a healthy diet. Do you understand the information I've explained to you?"

Cecil signed his name to the paper with a flourish. "Every word," he said. "Now what happens?"

"Now you can go on to the back and pick them out." She pointed him toward a door at the back of the tattoo parlor marked "Microbe Storage - Employees Only". Cecil crossed the small studio floor in only a few steps and, after a second's hesitation, opened the door.

The small room was warm; body temperature, Cecil assumed. Lining the walls were rows upon rows of softly glowing vials, each a different color and shade. He could see the microbes inside moving lazily like wax in a lava lamp. The shimmering liquid danced in the tubes and reflected in his widened eyes.

"They're beautiful, aren't they." Cindy had followed him and now stood in the doorway, watching the colors shift and roll inside the glass. Cecil nodded dumbly, still awestruck by the sight of the room. "They're an instinctual body," she said. "They react to your body chemistry and they know if you're scared or hurt or happy or sad." Cecil glanced at her and finally noticed the green mike tattoo twining itself around her right hand. "They're a little like a mood ring tattooed on your body." She tapped on a vial and smiled as the color inside changed to a softer blue. "I'm sorry, that sounds dumb."

"No, no, not at all. I've done some research on mikes, a lot of people say things like that." Cecil turned in a circle, taking in the hundreds of bottles. "How do I know which one to pick? Does it matter?"

She shrugged. "It doesn't. They'll match with nearly any body chemistry and it's not like it's a spiritual connection. Ignore me, I have a lot of stupid ideas about microbe feelings." Her tattoo changed to a lighter yellow and Cecil watched in fascination as it twisted between her fingers.

"It's not stupid," he said, approaching the wall to pick out his own colony of mikes. "I know the feeling. I feel like they'll know and I want...them...to like me..." He trailed off as one by one the little bottles of glowing color went dark. He reached out to touch the ones that were still lit and they too winked out. Every vial he approached went suddenly still and dark.

Cecil whirled to face Cindy in a panic. "They don't like me," he said in a horrified whisper. "They don't like me. I killed them!" He ran his hands through his hair and paced frantically. Cindy snagged his arm and forced him to stand still.

"Calm down. You didn't kill anything." She flicked a bottle and the gray contents began emitting a faint reddish light. "See? They're fine." She handed him the newly lit vial and it immediately doused itself again. "Huh," she said, cocking her head to the side. "That's never happened before."

"They don't like me," Cecil said, gazing sadly at the little gray beaker in his hand. "Why don't they like me?"

"It's not that they don't like you, Cecil, it's probably something to do with your body chemistry." Cindy sighed and took the bottle back from him. "I'm really sorry about this, usually it's a pretty easy process. But with some people it just doesn't take." She moved back toward the door. "Come on, we can see about getting you something nice and traditional, how about."

"No, wait," he pleaded. "Can I have a few minutes with...with them?" She hesitated and he clasped his hands together imploringly. "Please please please, Cindy, this is really important to me."

Cindy shot a glance at the security camera in the corner of the room, then back to Cecil's puppy-dog eyes. She sighed and shook her head. "If you think it'll help, you can have five minutes. Just don't do anything stupid or try to take something."

"I won't, I promise," he said as she shut the door behind her. And then he was alone with the mikes. Cecil sat down cross-legged on the floor and looked around at the still containers lining the walls.

"Wow, this is silly, talking to microbes," he said softly. Then he sat up straighter and declared, "No! No, this is not silly! I have to do this and…" He paused, squinting into the darkness inside the bottles. "And I know somehow, in some way… you can hear me.

"I'm here because I have a bet with Steve Carlsburg." He made a face at the name. "If you get bad vibes from the mere mention of his name, I apologize, little friends. I work with Steve, you see. Once, I mentioned at the office Christmas party how interesting mike tattoos were and that I might like to get one someday. Of course he pounced on it. Steve Carlsburg is the absolute worst. He bet me fifty bucks that I would chicken out of this but I won't! I'm getting my tattoo and that's that!" Cecil nodded once and glanced around for any reaction from the microbes.

The vials continued to show no signs of life. Cecil's shoulders slumped. "Okay, so there's another reason. I'll tell you if you promise not to laugh." The mikes remained unresponsive. "Right," Cecil muttered. "Of course.

"I have a really nice voice, as you may have noticed. People love my voice. I mean, I like my voice, but people _love_ my voice. They're always saying 'ooh, Cecil, you're so smooth, so suave', which is true. But sometimes that's not what I mean at all. People get so caught up listening to the sound of my voice that they don't hear my words. So I thought, maybe, if I had mikes, that whoever I was talking to could see my emotions on my arm and not get so distracted by my voice. But that's silly. Almost as silly as talking to you at all."

Cecil sighed and got up from the floor. "I guess it's dumb trying to talk microbes into liking me. Looks like I'm paying Steve fifty bucks on Monday." He shuddered and was just about to leave the room when he saw it. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a faint purplish light starting to infuse one of the containers on the wall. As he watched, the deep color moved and spread until the entire vial practically glowed with it, a tiny island of purple on the still-dark wall. Cecil's smile almost split his face in half.

"Hey," he whispered. He picked up the bottle and held it up to his eyes, peering inside to watch the microbes move. "So maybe it wasn't that silly after all. Thanks. I think."

Cecil emerged from the back room, purple microbes very much active in his hand. Cindy raised her eyebrows in surprise. "You got one," she said, sounding impressed. "You must be the mike whisperer." She sat him in her chair and set about prepping her equipment briskly, stopping only briefly to check on her client one more time. "You good? It takes a little while and I know how you said you were with needles. You sure you're going to be okay?"

Cecil watched the mikes tilt and swirl inside the tattoo machine. "Yeah," he answered. "I think I'll be fine now."

It was quiet in the office. Too quiet. Something was up. Steve couldn't hear it or see it, but he knew it was there. Just around the corner, or just behind that door, or just-

"Hi, Steve."

Or just waiting for him to step out of his cubicle. Steve turned on his heel and went straight back to his desk, muttering, "Hello, Cecil."

"Steeeeeve." Cecil was leaning against the doorway of Steve's cubicle, blatantly ignoring the dress code with his shirt collar open and his sleeves rolled to his elbows. "Notice anything different?"

Steve didn't so much as glance at him. "Nope."

"Sure?"

Steve huffed and spun in his chair to face his obnoxious coworker. "Cecil, noticing different things about you is the last thing on my- gah!" He cut himself off with a shout as purple lines began to wend their way gracefully down Cecil's left arm. Steve watched, dumbfounded, as the purple lines began to move into shapes and patterns on Cecil's arms, some moving up his neck and onto his face. Cecil giggled at Steve's flabbergasted expression.

"I'll take that fifty bucks now."


End file.
